Both of your reasons are circular--one buys a suit to support the manufacture of suits? Buying a shirt to support a band is quite a different thing. And if all your clothes are in the wash except your suit, well why did you own the suit?

You're missing the point, I'm buying the suit to support the designer / tailor, the creator NOT the mass manufacturer. Like you I'm supporting the creative endevour of an individual or group.

In this sense it's a far better reason for a suit than for a band t-shirt. A suit is the primary output of a tailor, a band t-shirt is a commercial by-product of a band. There are better ways to support a band than buying a t-shirt - buying their records or seeing them live for instance. There is no better way to support a tailor.

As for the circular reasoning on its dirty - I agree but it's the same for both suit and band t-shirt. You have to have a reason to own it which I've given you.

How am I missing the point? Whether the suit is made by a tailor or a mass manufacturer, it's still circular reasoning to buy a suit to support the manufacture of suits.

Fashion is a creative industry. If I admire the creativity in that industry and I think that the things that they produce are beautiful examples of design (which you may not agree personally appreciate but I'm guessing that you won't refute the basic premise that fashion is a creative design industry). How am I meant to support them and to encourage and ensure the survival of that industry, other than by buying the things they produce?

Regardless of that owning and wearing a suit because I think it is a beautiful example of clothes design, regardless of whether it supports the creator or not, is a valid thing to do in itself that is neither narcissistic nor an example of social pressure.

And in case you think I'm desperately trying to come up with reasons but that they're not actually things any real person would do, I own only two suits, one of which (by Oswald Boateng) I own precisely for this reason - because I believe it to be a beautiful item (or more precisely two beautiful items) of clothing.

Ah yes--so now we're up to narcissism, social pressure to wear a suit, or an aesthetic appreciation of suits in themselves. I will take you at your word that you wear suits purely to appreciate their beauty in and of themselves, and not in a narcissistic attempt to make yourself more beautiful by nature of being wrapped in such beautiful garments.

I didn't say it was the only reason I did it, that wasn't your question. The reality is few things we do can be ascribed to a single motive, more normally they're a mix of several things. But your question was name a reason which wasn't the two you gave of which this is one. There are others but given how much work it's been just to get you to gracelessly accept that there might be something here I really don't have the strength to talk about any others.

But the problem is still that your argument applies to lost of clothes, not just suits. Shirts are less practical than t-shirts. Buttons are fiddly and unnecessary, collars a pointless throw back to necktie and don't get me started on the practicality of cuffs. Most shoes are sub-optimal from a pure practicality point of view. Ironically many trainers aren't actually good for running because of the way they're balanced.

The problem is that you danced around my point rather than addressing it; perhaps if you had been more direct and to-the-point, you would have the strength to address it more convincingly.